My father was a zoologist. Because he thought the literature on batrachia was incompetent and rather inaccurate, he spent his life writing a multivolume study on the subject which became famous in scholarly circles. This work never really appealed to me, although we had lots of frogs and salamanders at home whose lives and patterns of development would have merited my study.

My mother had been an actress before she married, and she achieved her greatest triumph as Ophelia at the Zwickau State Theater; she never surpassed this high watermark. To this I owe my name Laertes, certainly a euphonious but somewhat peculiar name. Nevertheless, I am grateful that she didn't name me Polonius or Guildenstern---but of course it doesn't matter now.

When I was five years old, my parents gave me a magic set. I learned how to make a certa

Clearly upon further evaluation of the parental background the subject had no choice early on in what he was to become. His mother was an actress and his father a studious and over zealous researcher of science. It is made clear that there is no real love for his fathers work in the passage. It also seems apparent that he is not impressed with the success of his mother only achieving the title of actress by a mere college performance. Nevertheless, he is of flesh and blood. Parents want their children to be a representative of whom they are/were. It is clear that this is not the expectations of our young subject, but the path had been laid before him.

It would simply be easy to read through this and merely see it for a bit of history through the mind and eyes of our narrator and subject of the story. If that is all that truly appeals to you as a reader then so be it. However, I would be remiss if I did not pose the following; for I believe that this little passage is the key to the kingdom of all that has been tucked away deep into our narrators' innermost core. In these words lie his deepest depressions and his struggle for acceptance which ultimately leads him to his metamorphosis.

It has become a reality that he will always be the little child of his parents. He will always be the actor his mother never was. He will always be the scholar that his father was, a smart man with the lack of belief in the system of science. No matter how many magic tricks are performed, or how many other avenues are approached in the future, he will always be the "Little Magician" unless drastic change can be made. It is quite apparent in the passage that there was no happiness before the decision of metamorphosis. There was no way to be free to become his own person and still be the person he was supposed to be. Truth was he needed to change something. Otherwise he would end up a decrepit, old, bitter, and depressed man with no memories of his very own. In a way we all need a metamorphosis.

Above all, my ambition was aroused. Soon the magic kit no longer satisfied me because in the meantime I had learned to read, and on the cover I read the demeaning phrase "The Little Magician." (Halpern 347)

I think it quite interesting in the way the narrator refers to h

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Approximate Word count = 1555
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)